Review: Madawi Al-Rasheed, "Contesting the Saudi State: Islamic Voices from a new Generation" (original) (raw)
Related papers
Religion and politics in Saudi Arabia: Wahhabism and the state
2009
What is Wahhabism? What is its relationship with the Saudi state? Does it play a part in Islamist terrorist threats? These are among the complex questions tackled in Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia. Moving from the historical, social, and political contexts in which ...
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2012
The concept of al-walā wa-l-barā (loyalty to Islam, Muslims, and God and disavowal of everything else) has developed in various ways in Wahhabi discourse since the 19th century. This can partly be ascribed to the civil war that caused the collapse of the second Saudi state (1824-91) and the lessons that both quietist and radical Wahhabi scholars have drawn from that episode. In this article, I contend that Wahhabi contestations of al-walā wa-l-barā can be divided into two distinct trends-one social and the other political-and that both show the enduring legacy of the second Saudi state, which can still be discerned in Wahhabi scholarly writings on the subject of al-walā wa-l-barā today.
Political Thought, 2023
The subject of Wahhabism in our countries is rarely analyzed in a coherent and impartial manner. There are almost no analytical texts that establish the basic legal-political and ideological characteristics of radical Islamist movements inspired by Wahhabism, and even when they do exist, they are often unconvincing. Hence, it is important for the scholarly public and practitioners in the region to clarify certain basic questions concerning the true meaning of Wahhabism, its transplantation from a religious teaching into a juridical-political mechanism, and further security implications. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to help intensify the scientific debate around the meaning of these movements in general, but also for our region, all with the aim of obtaining a complete picture of their effects in everyday life. Although the scope does not allow a detailed analysis of the historical ordeals that portrayed Wahhabism as an ideological substratum of Saudi Arabia’s juridical-political systems and some radical movements, this paper is primarily concerned with analyzing the main features of the original conservative theoretical school labeled Wahhabism, using the main points from the works of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. The paper then analyzes the accommodations and distortions in theory and practice of al-Wahhab’s teachings in the legal system of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as well as in contemporary fundamentalist movements.
At the Crossroads: Saudi Arabia's Dilemmas (2006)
Journal of Conflict Studies, 2006
In the course of the last decade it has become clear that events have gone wrong in Saudi Arabia. A deep intra-societal struggle cuts across all formative institutions of the country and the house of Al Saud is at pains to address its profound crisis of legitimacy and performance, the overwhelming crisis of identity associated with modernity, the internal and external pressures for socio-economic reforms, and the complex and multi-faceted phenomenon of religious extremism. This article examines the formidable challenge of addressing frustrated popular expectations, and reforming the state's religious institutions and rigid politico-ideological agenda without alienating the substantial conservative constituency on which the monarchy's legitimacy depends. It also traces the historical and the ideological roots of international and local jihadism as well as the evolution of Wahhabism from a retrograde but status quo-oriented philosophy into a radical ideology prone to violence and terrorism.
Religion and Politics in Saudi Arabia
The Arab world has enjoyed geostrategic importance since historical times as seen in the flourishing of trade and commerce, production of knowledge during what has been nostalgically referred to as the Islamic golden age, and most recently the discovery of energy resources critical to the stability of the international system. However, the region's particularistic and unique socio-cultural and political divisions have not lent themselves to easy analysis. Among others, one of the main difficulties in understanding the region is the space it occupies between tradition and modernity. This space has been shaped since history by the interloping forces of religion, economics and geopolitics, which in turn were sharpened and transformed by the respective colonial experiences that birthed nationalism followed by etatism as a means to legitimising the sovereign authority of the state (as dominated by a regime or leader). Thus resulted the fraught creation of the modern Arab nation-states, forced to embrace the capitalist economic system and its attendant structural and administrative requirements. In an effort to understand this dialectical opposition between the forces of tradition and modernity, the paper focuses on the role of religious ideology and political consolidation in shaping the contours of the Saudi kingdom's state formation and sustenance. The dynamic between the intertwined assertions of the Sunni Wahhabi religious tradition on the one hand and the politically entrenched power of the Al-Saud regime on the other, underscores the intermeshed duality of the Saudi state. This means that even if the Saudi state is the instrument of modernization, it also simultaneously pursues policies to ensure its legitimacy through particular conventions, in this case, the Wahhabist religious movement in the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam. The paper will thus investigate the means and methods employed within the state towards achieving change with continuity, development with stability and reform and the regime maintenance of the Ibn Saud family.
THE RISE OF WAHHABI SECTARIANISM AND ITS IMPACT IN SAUDI ARABIA
This article examines pre-modern reform movement Wahhabism emerged in the Najd region of current Saudi Arabia, in the eighteenth century. For the opponents, the Wahhabi term is derived from the name of its formulator, Muhammad b. Abdulwahhab (d.1792). However, Ibn Abdulwahhab and his followers call themselves as 'muwahhidun' (monotheists). The views and approach of Ibn Abdullwahhab to Islamic theology construct the ideology of the movement. The movement initially emerged as a religious initiative against innovations, but then transformed into a political movement. The article sheds light historical connections between Wahhabi and Saudi families that played vital role in the formation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ÖZ Vehhabi Fırkasının Doğuşu ve Suudi Arabistan'a Etkisi Bu makalede on sekizinci yüzyılda bugünkü Suudi Arabistan'ın Necd bölge-sinde modernite öncesi ortaya çıkmış olan yeniden yapılanmacı Vehhabi hareketi incelenmektedir. Bu mezhebin karşıtları Vehhabi adlandırmasını ekolün kuru-cusu ve fikir babası olan Muhammed b. Abdulvehhab (ö.1792)'a nisbetle yap-mışlardır. Fakat İbni Abdulvehhab ve takipçileri kendilerini 'birleyen' anlamın-da 'muvahhidun' olarak nitelendirmişlerdir. İbni Abdulvehhab'ın kelâma dair fikir ve yaklaşımları bu hareketin temelini oluşturmaktadır. Vehhabilik ilk önce bid'atlere karşı dînî bir hareket olarak ortaya çıkmış daha sonraları ise siyasi bir amaca bürünmüştür. Ayrıca bu çalışmada bugünkü Suudi Arabistan Krallığı'nın oluşumunda hayati öneme sahip olan Vehhabi ailesi ve Suud hanedanlığının ta-rihsel ilişkilerine yer verilmektedir.
MUHAMMAD BIN SALMAN'S REFORMS VS. WAHHABI RULES: A CHALLENGE FOR THE STATUS QUO OF THE SAUDI STATE
PR O C E E D I N G S INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE STRATEGIES XXI THE COMPLEX AND DYNAMIC NATURE OF THE SECURITY ENVIROMENT, 2019
In the mid-eighteenth century, the as-Saud family concluded an agreement with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, a rebellious preacher who promoted a very literal approach to Islamic religious precepts and was against of any deviation from the initial practices of Islam. This understanding between the Wahhabis and the As-Saud family has legitimized the latter to pursue an expansionist policy and to create a sustainable state at the beginning of the twentieth century. Therefore, the Saudi monarchy monopolized political and military action, while the Wahhabi clergy took over the religious, legal and social spheres of the newly established Saudi state. However, with the "modernizing" reforms initiated by Muhammad bin Salman (MbS) in 2017 in Saudi Arabia, such as authorizing women to drive or reopening cinemas-among others-accompanied by his statements and initiatives calling for a moderate Islam-have been interpreted by the fundamentalists as a tendency to break the historic pact between the Saudi House and the Wahhabi religious institution. In this paper we will try to see to what extent the reforms so widely circulated in the regional, international and local press, are sustainable in the long term, taking into account the importance and role of Wahhabi ulema in the Saudi society and, equally, if the "moderate Islam" model promoted by MbS could find supporters among them.